In December 2017, Nissan (China) Investment Co., Ltd. (including its parent company Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., collectively as “Nissan”) together with Renault S.A.S. (“Renault”, together with Nissan collectively as “Renault-Nissan Alliance”) and Dongfeng Motor Group Company Limited (“Dongfeng”) establish a new joint venture (i.e. eGT New Energy Automotive Co., Ltd., the “Joint Venture Company”) in China. The Joint Venture Company, with the registered capital of RMB 140 million, is set up in Shiyan City, Hubei Province. It will develop new pure electric vehicles based on Renault-Nissan Alliance’s electric-vehicle technology, which are to be sold to the China market via Renault-Nissan Alliance’s and Dongfeng’s distribution channels.
Renault-Nissan Alliance, one of the world’s largest automobile manufacturers, dives deep into the field of electric vehicles and possesses cutting-edge technologies in the industry. Dongfeng is a leading Chinese automobile manufacturer with strong production and R&D capacity. The two parties have been cooperating for a long time in China and set up several joint venture companies, including Dongfeng Renault Automotive Company Limited and Dongfeng Motor Company Ltd. This project is of great strategic significance for both Renault-Nissan Alliance and Dongfeng, and is an important step for Renault-Nissan Alliance to further expand the China market, implement the eco-friendly concept of new energy and offer more cost-effective and environmentally friendly vehicles to Chinese consumers.
King & Wood Mallesons (“KWM”), acting as legal counsel for Nissan, provided full services for the project ranging across investment, corporate governance, intellectual property, and compliance. In the project, KWM deeply participated in feasibility demonstration, transaction structure design, negotiations, and drafting transaction documents, and provided detailed and in-depth analysis of the homologation of pure electric vehicles, the industry entry requirements of new energy vehicles as well as issues related to the corporate-average fuel consumption credits and new energy vehicle credits that recently launched by the State, gaining high recognition from the client.
The parties signed an equity joint venture contract in the middle of this year, and will further negotiate and collaborate on all relevant material commercial arrangements related to the Joint Venture Company. The project has obtained merger filing clearance from China’s Ministry of Commerce and the Joint Venture Company has been granted a business license recently. The KWM team will continue its all-round legal services for the client.
The project is led by partners Liu Xinyu and Mark Zhang, with great support from partner Cecilia Lou and her team in intellectual property related issue and partner Chai Zhifeng and his team in merger filings related issue.
